This woman's work: Limoncello and amigurumi

Just a quick post tonight, as its late and I am exhausted. Its been a busy day at the cottage. The baby fed, quite literally, all night and I woke with a sore back from twisting around her slightly in bed. Thankfully I feed her lying down an night, so I managed the odd doze. I awoke late, so Charlie was late for school and, because I'd had to wake her abruptly (and she hadn't had enough sleep either,) the baby was grumpy. Just as I'd poured myself the first cup of tea of the day, Jonny appeared and said he'd missed the school bus. 15 minutes later I'm driving us all the 15 mile round trip to school.

I've tried to work today, honestly I have, but the darkness and the horrible, cold rain has conspired to prevent me from being too motivated. I cut up some paper, and finished my hand and footprint tiles, which I will share with you another day. I am pleased with them. Then, right on cue, Florence woke up and I spent most of the rest of the time baby wrangling. Or baby wrestling, as my friend calls it. Florrie's a big, heavy baby now who won't sit still. She's prone to suddenly arching her back and flinging herself around. Wrestling is an accurate description.

Still, the baby went into the sling and that gave me chance to work on the next stage of the Christmas alcohol - home made Limoncello and Blackberry vodka. I spent a relaxing couple of hours mixing up sugar solution, sterilising jars and pottering about.

 

The now sweetened lemon vodka will now retreat back into the fridge for a week to infuse some more, before I strain the lemon zest out and bottle it. 

Here's the recipe in case you fancy having a go. There's still time before Christmas

Limoncello

6 small unwaxed lemons

1 litre bottle vodka - cheap will do

750g caster sugar

750ml boiling water

 

1. Wash and sterilise a large Kilner jar by putting into a cool oven for 10 mins (gas mark 1/ 140 degrees C)

2. Wash the lemons, then grate the lemon zest finely, taking care not to take the pith (ha!)

3. Put lemon zest into sterile jar and pour over the vodka. Secure well and store in a cool, dark place for one week. Shake everyday - it looks like a snowstorm of yellow snow (nice)

4) After a week has passed, measure out the sugar into a large bowl. Add freshly boiling water and stir carefully until the sugar dissolves.  You can tell when the sugar has dissolved as it goes clear, and if you put a spoon into the mixture, you can't see or feel any granules on the back of the spoon. Stir the lemon infused vodka into the sugar syrup.

5) Wash the Kilner jar, along with another of the same size, and sterilise both. Pour the combined mixture of lemon vodka and sugar syrup into the jars. Store for another week, shaking every day. Strain the Limoncello through a clean muslin cloth and decant into pretty, sterilised bottles.

Store in the freezer and drink neat, use in cocktails or pour over ice cream.

 

 

The blackberry vodka is proving to be more of a challenge as we've gone a little off piste with this. We wanted to use the blackberries left over from the railway jelly, so we bundled them into a demijohn and added vodka. I've been keeping notes. I'll share them with you at a later date.

 

I also wanted to share this little dude with you. Well, dudette. It's Cactus Jacqui!

How I enjoyed making her! The pattern was free, enjoyable to crochet, and I made her up in a night! a perfect project. You can find the pattern here.

Cactus Jacqui is part of a gift I've made for a handmade Secret Santa. I need to post her tomorrow, hopefully the postman will deliver her safely to her new home on the other side of the country.

 

Well. That wasn't quick, was it?! Thanks for hanging out with me again, though, its always fun.

Claire x

 

 

This Woman's Work: Christmas

 

Christmas has a touch of the Marmites about it, I think, you either love it or hate it. My husband hates it with a passion. He thinks its overpriced, enforced consumerism - which, I suppose it is. I tend to swing, like a pendulum, between the two extremes. I think it is important to punctuate the year with traditional celebrations, as they are cast-in-stone ways of ensuring that we keep up with our friends and family. I think I actually prefer the concept of Thanksgiving, though. I do not have a strong (public) religious belief, and I do not actually believe that God cares all that much whether you pray on special or ordinary days - so the religious aspect of Christmas does little for me. I like the idea of noticing, and appreciating the good things that surround us all. Christmas, all too often, can become an exercise in The Wanties. I am not exempt from this myself.

I am starting my series 'This Woman's Work' with Christmas, as I think its an excellent example of the hard work that women do that often goes unnoticed. My husband is a 21st century man, he does a lot of housework and believes that relationships should be 50:50. However, he does have a tendancy to arrive at Christmas expecting that everyone should have thoughtful gifts chosen, made or bought, beautifully wrapped and delivered on budget. He does the food shopping, but I do most of the cooking. He couldn't care less whether Christmas cards were bought, written and sent, or who is invited and what type of food is served when they arrive, but he doesn't want anyone in the family to feel that we don't care about them. Work commitments mean that he can't attend school plays and decoration afternoons, magic shows, pantomimes or school fayres. So he doesn't get involved with finding costumes, raffle prizes, taking the children to various Christmas events and making sure they don't get too much of a sugar rush, visiting Father Christmas and encouraging the suddenly stage-struck child into the grotto, or helping clear the classroom of PVA glue and millions of pieces of paper from the classroom carpet. Nor does he think of the classroom politics of ensuring that everyone in the class has a card, posted into the right box and addressed in the right way, and of remembering other children in different classes who invited Charlie to their birthday parties over the year, and ensuring that anyone we might have left out has a card written and delivered the very next day. My husband is amazing and I love him, but Christmas really is MY work. He's busy doing the important paid stuff.

I start to plan Christmas in the preceeding January. We are both from quite small families, but that means that we need to buy presents for everyone, adults included. This may not be what other families do, and some of you will think that this is excessive and that the adults can do without gifts. Not so for our families. This is one of the unspoken challenges of Christmas that women deal with. Do you give to receive? What happens if someone turns up at your door with an unexpected gift? Do you have a few extras wrapped and ready under the tree for such eventualities? What if you buy a present for a person who can't afford to buy one back for you - is this a treat for them that they can't afford themselves, or are you encouraging them to reciprocate your gift unnecessarily, leaving them out of pocket? Do you buy things of equal value for all relatives? Or do you make sure that people have an equal AMOUNT of gifts (I especially struggle with this one with the children. It comes from Jonathan's younger days, when he had a friend with extremely generous parents. "Why does Father Christmas love Mark more than me?" he cried. Ouch.) What happens if you buy someone a gift in the sale? Does that mean you buy someone else a gift of the same amount that you spent, or the same amount that the gift is worth? And on, and on and on, Ariston.

Women try to work out all of this emotional, hidden crap. I am sure men do too but, in conversations with men I know, I find that they tend to care less what other people think.

I make gifts because I like it, and because it makes my money go further. However, if you make to sell then this is not a great use of your time. It doesn't make sense, from a financial point of view, to make items if the cost of your labour, plus the materials, is worth more than the amount you would spend on a gift. Besides which, do your friends and family actually LIKE handmade gifts, anyway? I once made a handmade blanket that cost almost £100 in yarn and hours upon hours of my time. I could have cried when I saw the disappointment on my recipient's face, and they said (much like Andie Macdowell in Four Weddings) "Oh. A blanket." 

This year I AM handmaking gifts for some people but not others; I have learned the hard way! Besides which, it gives me the opportunity to experiment with some new ideas for my newly re-launched Folksy shop that I plan to give an overhaul to in January 2013.

So, the picture above is a note book for our lovely Aunty Pauline. She's hoping to move in 2013 and is a great maker of lists. She's buying a house that looks much like this so I tried to interpret it in fabric. I REALLY enjoyed this project - fabric books are fabbity anyway, but trying to represent a home was lovely. I'm going to have a go at doing ours once I've finished the Christmas presents, but I intend to frame ours. I really hope she likes it.

SO, sneaking the Christmas joy where I can, then, with the odd bit of crafting, and some Christmas spirit (and chocolate. Oh, yes.) I'm trying not to worry too much about the other stuff.

 

Claire x

The T Shirt Blanket

Well hello, dear reader. How are you? I hope all is well. I'm good, thank you, but busy, busy, busy. I like being busy and this makes me happy. My textiles course is brilliant, and is taking a couple of days per week of my time. At the moment I'm doing lots of work on learning to draw and making marks. Sometimes it's a little frustrating as I'd like to leap ahead to the sewing bit, but I'm realistic enough to know that I need to work on this stage pretty hard; my drawing is terminally rubbish. I'm going to set up a separate blog to track my college work, I think. I'll share a link when it's up and running and, if you're interested, you can pop over and have a look at what I'm doing.

Today I wanted to talk to you about the second of my columns in Handmade Living magazine. It was published in the August edition. It talks about our family days out at Spurn Point.

 

Spurn is an amazing place. It is a spit of land that's slowly being reclaimed by the sea. It is wild and lonely, with raging hot-chocolate coloured tides and sandy beaches peppered with wild sea grass. The skies are massive as the surrounding land is very flat, and the beaches are peppered with long gone coastal defences: well worn bricks, rusted pieces of metal and eroded concrete. We go to take photos and walk and throw stones into the sea. 

I took these pictures at Spurn in 2009. It's amazing how much the boys have changed since then!

Jonny was just a boy, bless him. Now he's tall and muscular and strong. A man. 

I love the texture of Spurn Point. At one point the path narrows, being eroded on both sides, so that the sea is to your left, and the Humber estuary to your right. One side smells briny, and the other brackish.

There is something about the moodiness of that picture of Dom that makes me weak at the knees. He's bemused by this, and his mum thinks it's a dreadful picture. 

 

Charlie is but a baby! He's lost his baby cheeks now, and is a proper, lithe, six year old boy. I miss those chubby baby cheeks.

Last time we went to Spurn there was an unusally high tide. The power of the sea was utterly magnificent. That night part of the road was washed away. Spurn is a land that will be reclaimed to the sea in the next few years - often large chunks disappear overnight. That overpowering feeling of loss and the raw power of nature pervades the place. It forcefully reminds me to live in the present, and to appreciate all the things that I currently hold dear.

In the spirit of this magical land, I wanted to make a beach blanket that was respectful to it's environment, but also provided a base for family adventures. It needed to be cheery and comfortable and practical. 

At the same time, I was sorting out bags of clothes the boys had grown out of, and was trying to find time to take them to the charity shop. Then an idea hit. Why not re-use those fabrics to makes something special?

In order to make a family sized beach blanket, you need several T shirts. I used 17, big and small. As you are knitting in squares, you can knit up a square each time you have some spare fabric - it'll take a while to get enough together to piece the final blanket, but it'll be worth the wait.

Making the yarn

Cut the T shirt across the body under the arms. This should give you a tube of fabric. At the bottom seam, cut into the t shirt at an angle, until the cut is about 2cms deep. Then start to cut the shirt horizontally, 2cms from the bottom seam all the way round. You should aim to cut into into one long strip, so will need to work at a slight angle, like peeling an apple. If you do end up with a shorter length, fret not, just tie the ends together tightly. Don't worry about plastic transfers or embroidery on the T shirt, just keep snipping. These add to the texture of the yarn, and give a visual reminder of where the fabric has come from.

Knitting Up

You will need huge 20mm knitting needles. Cast on 20 stitches. Knit five rows in garter stitch. Cast off. Knit as many squares as you have yarn available.

Colour Correction

You may be lucky and your t shirts all look good together. On the other hand, you may end up like me with lots of mucky, stained school shirts that don't look great even when knitted into squares. If this is the case, you can correct the colours with dye.

I used Dylon Machine Use Dye, that I purchased from Hobbycraft for £6.49 per colour. I chose bright colours as I wanted something to cheer us up on beach days. However, with dye, the world is your oyster. The only things you must bear in mind are this:

1. Man made fibres will not dye easily. Most t shirts are different blends of cotton and man made fibres like acrylic. This means that you will get varying shades from one load according to the amount of natural fibres in each item.


2. Most modern items are made with acrylic thread. This means the thread usually stays white even when the rest of the fabric changes colour.


3. The larger the number of items in any one dye wash, the lighter the shade will be generally. For very intense colours, use a small number of fabric pieces.


4. It is very difficult to lighten dark colours. I would recommend only dying lighter shades.


5. Normal colour mixing rules apply. For example, if you dye yellow fabric a blue shade, then you will end up with green.

I really like Machine Dye as it's so simple to use. You just add cooking salt to the drum, followed by the powdered dye and the fabric pieces. Set to a 40 degree wash and leave alone. Watching that first turn of the drum where the colour first meets the fabric is a special kind of magic!

Joining the Squares

If you have several different colour squares, it's worth playing around to see how best you can put together your pieces. Do you have enough for a gradual rainbow change? A chequerboard pattern? Something random? I like to take a photo of each of my pieces and arrange them as a photo collage. I use Picnik, but I am sure there are other equally good photo collage services out there (if you know a better one, please let me know!)

Once you have decided what sort of pattern you want, join the squares with single crochet, with spare t shirt yarn. A tutorial can be found on the web here. 

 

Et voila! A new use for old fabrics you have knocking around the house, and a blanket that will hopefully be the scene of many a new family adventure. Here's hoping many a picnic is consumed upon her, and many sandy feet run across her - and that Spurn stays around for a good long time yet.

With love

Claire x

Recent Adventures with Embroidery

Blimey, it's chilly here today. I've taken to wearing socks again but, to be honest, I'm quite tempted to light the fire this afternoon. My hands are like ice! I might warm them up with some crochet in a bit.

As the weekend approaches I wanted to share with you a couple of the Little Picasso cushions I've done recently of which I am proud.

You may remember that my Little Picasso cushions are embroidered copies of a child's drawing, with patchwork to match the colours used in the illustration. The actual process of making them is a closely guarded secret (if I told you I'd have to kill you, mwahahaha). I'm very proud of the way they turn out. And I LOVE working from children's drawings, it really is the most fun.

The hand embroidery is time consuming, but is my favourite part. It takes, on average 4 - 10 hours per cushion.

This one was from a little boy for his Frampy, who owns a Harley Davidson. Isn't it the coolest thing?

 

I tried really hard to make sure that the fabrics I chose were appropriate biker fabrics - sometimes choosing cushion fabric for men can be a bit challenging. This was OK though because it contained red and orange. I'm LOVING red and orange at the moment - it's part of my year long orange fetish*

The back of Frampy's cushion was plain, with a zip:

 

 

By contrast, here is a Little Picasso by a girl for her Aunty Janaya. Possibly picked because, again, it indulges my love of orange:

 

Being more girly, this one has the patchwork frill, and is fastened at the back by a large orange button. I love it's four mismatched corner buttons too.

 

You see, THIS is why I love working with children's drawings. Not only are they unique and effused with love, but who would have thought about putting orange with lilac and blue? But, blimey, I love it and I will certainly use that colour scheme again in the future.

I hope you have a great weekend! I'm in the very unusual position of not having any orders, so I think I shall spend my time making Roman blinds for my kitchen/diner. I've only had the fabric for, umm..., four years, so I really ought to get a wriggle on!

Lots of love! Speak soon!

Claire x

 

* the colour orange. Not Conservative politician orange fetish. Obviously.

Taa-Daa: A Fabric Book for a Special Little Boy

If you've been following my blog for a little while, you know that recently one of my friends, Lee-ann, lost her two year old son. It was terribly shocking news and, unsurprisingly, it has knocked everyone sideways, even those who did not know the family terribly well. There's just something so frighteningly unnatural in losing your child that way. It was an unexpected death, he hadn't been ill, and his family still don't have any real answers to the cause of his death.

When a child dies like this, it makes everything else fall into perspective. It has made me realise just how utterly fundamentally life-affirmingly important my own children are to me, even when they are being little sods (which happens quite a lot ;o). I have never made any secret of finding motherhood extremely demanding - but maybe I do whinge too much. Really, I have the most important things in life right here before me, don't I? Says I, currently irritated so much that my teeth itch, by silly questions, mardy teenagers, too-loud television, homework not done, meals and snacks that are constantly whined for, siblings fighting, constant attention seeking behaviour etc etc etc. But even so, these are the days that I will look back on when I am old and grey and, as much as I moan, I cannot imagine for a single moment how awful it would be if one of them were taken away. 

After any death, I think it's natural to feel completely impotent. If I could have done anything, no matter how big, to change William's death or take away his family's pain then I would have done it. As it stands, there's very little one can do, is there? Other than contemplate life, and feel one's own pain and imagine the horror that the immediate family are feeling.

Right from the start, Sophia, William's big sister, said that the family should have a party to remember William. And so Lee-ann and Mark began planning a celebration of William's life, rather than a funeral. In a very touching tribute they requested that all adults and children that could not attend the funeral jump on their beds at 2pm. A lot of people joined in, and a lot of fun was had in William's name.

Lee-ann mentioned to me that she wanted a Guest Book in which funeral guests recalled their memories of William. Immediately I saw a way in which I could help in some small way, so I offered to make one. Amongst William's favourite things were: the colour orange; 2 pence pieces, especially when whizzed down those swirly charity boxes; daisies; jumping in puddles; bubbles and dandelion clocks. I wanted to include as many of these items as I could.

Here is my tribute to sweet William:

 

 

It was emotionally tough to make, but not nearly as emotionally tough as it was for it's recipients, I'm sure. It was important to me to make it well and to get it right too. I nearly had a complete meltdown when my husband, without really looking, said that the back cover looked like a happy boy on a cloud! Yikes, how inappropriate would that be?! Thankfully, after looking carefully he agreed it did not, and friends back this up and so it was sent off (with me having palpitations until it was received and approved of!)

Technically, I really enjoyed the mix of sewing, applique and both hand and machine embroidery. I was very unsure how to tackle the bubbles, but machine sewing circles onto bits of voile worked really well as it made them stand proud, as well as being transparent. If I could go back and change anything, I would make the fabric onto which I embroidered the dandelion clocks less patterned as I think it's hard to see them. Also, I made the picture on the back a little too wide, so a sliver of the umbrella slides off the edge. This was me getting carried away with making the picture on a deliberately cut-too-big piece of fabric; I wasn't careful enough at measuring the size of the finished book.

Anyway, you live and learn, and this was one of those projects that meant a lot to me. On reflection, I am pleased with what I created and I learned some important lessons that will help me to progress further with future projects. 

I'm also incredibly grateful to Lee-ann for letting me share something so private. Sleep tight, William. My memory of you will always be how much you made your Mummy smile x

My Knitting Nemesis: The Tank Top Of Doom

Once in a while you come across a pattern that will defeat you. If you're a new knitter this happens relatively often, and you think that the problem lies just with you. When you're more experienced it STILL happens, although you're quicker to blame the pattern or the yarn! Sometimes it's knitter error. Sometimes you just can't put your finger on why that pattern does not work for you at that time. However, most people don't talk about it, which leads beginner knitters to believe that they're the only ones with pattern compatibility issues.

The Robot Tank Top was my nemesis. It looks pretty simple at first glance - stockinette, a few colour changes and a bit of slightly trickier intarsia. However, to be fair, even the intarsia is in blocks so it's not going to be too complicated, surely?

This was the pattern I chose to complete on my train journey - one that I expected to be quick, satisfying and pretty easy. Ha!

Let me remind you how it was supposed to look:

 

I was to knit it for my almost 6 year old, Charlie. I used Paton's Smoothie DK, in red and grey, and Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in slate.

First off, the yarn was truely, dreadfully awful. I thought 100% acrylic would be nice and practical for an active boy, and I knew the tank top would need regular machine washing. Smoothie has got a nice feel on the ball (oo-er), not like nasty scratchy acrylic. However, once you start knitting with it, the cabled ply soon becomes a problem and it's very easy to split the ply and make a mess. I did this lots of times and kept having to go back to correct my mistakes.

The tank is made in two separate pieces which are to be joined. The neck and armhole finishes are to be picked up and knit after the garment has been made up. I carefully checked my gauge, which was spot on. I don't very often do this.

The back of the piece was made with pretty much no fuss at all; no problems so far. It took me maybe a couple of days. The front however, was a nightmare. Firstly, because of the way the pattern was laid out, I failed to notice that you needed to knit 3 inches of stockinette before starting the instarsia pattern. I noticed after half completing the colour work. Fail. That was several hours work to rip back. Irritated but undeterred, I started again following the chart. This time I finished. THEN I noticed that you needed to start shaping the armholes half way through the pattern. Arrrgh! Again, it had to be mostly ripped back and started once more. It's arguable whether this is pattern fail or knitter fail. The information was there, but it wasn't clear enough for me to process. I think that the point at which one starts shaping the armholes could have been marked on the chart with a dot, but still.

Finally, I completed the item. Fabulous. Except it didn't look right at all. It was the right length, but way, way too wide:

I got the tape measure out, and I got my gauge swatch out. Swatch was fine. By some conspiracy of fate, the tank top was 3.5 inches WIDER than it should have been. Arse. Was this the yarn, or the knitter? Or possibly a fault in the pattern?

At this point, I threw the darned thing on the floor, swore at it quite a lot and then studiously ignored it for a few hours. There was no way Charlie could wear it without looking ridiculous. I didn't want to give up because that would be letting the sodding, stinking robot win. What to do, what to do?

At first I considered steeking. Steeking is the process of CUTTING knit fabric to make it smaller. However, any idiot knows that knitted fabric unravels. Therefore, the magic and mystery of steeking is some cunningly placed stitches to form a barrier against unravelling.

I pinned the Tank Top Of Doom out and looked at it for a long time. Steeking might work, but I needed to lose so much that would lose my armhole shaping. That would make for a pretty crappy looking tank top. Eventually had a better plan - I would cut off the ribbing, pick up stitches all around the garment on a large circular needle and then start to knit downwards (from top to bottom, rather than the bottom to top working of the original pieces). That would add length to the body. Charlie would have to grown into the darned thing.

However, that did pose one problem. If you look really closely at the last row of red and the first row of grey, you'll see that the new stitches are knitted half a stitch to the left of the new ones:

There really is no way around this; it's a fact of knitting. The key is to do something to disguise it: a lace pattern or colour change will do. Thankfully the back of the garment had red and grey stripes, so it was pretty easy to disguise the new join.

At this point, given that I had been staring that this darned bit of fluff for many, many hours, I started to accept an uncomfortable truth about my knitting,

I was taught to knit as a child by my mother. To this day my mother says she can't knit "properly."It's hard to explain, I may well upload a video, but her version involves letting go of the needle to wrap the yarn with your right hand. My grandmother, a proper English knitter, taught me to knit "properly" in order to make up for my mother's dodgy technique. I clearly remember being able to do both, but choosing my mother's technique because it was more familiar to me. How frustrating!

Fast forward about 15 years and I spot a garter stich cushion in an interiors magazine that I decide I can make. It's 2002 and I haven't even picked up any needles in all that time. I bought the necessary knitting accoutrements and set about reminding myself how to knit. It was before the days of online knitting, my mother lived 100 miles away and my grandmother had died. So I sort of taught myself.

Last year I decided that this "wrong" way was something that could be corrected and set about teaching myself how to improve using You Tube tutorials. I found that Continental knitting felt the most comfortable and was soon on my way with this new skill. I found the knit stitch took longer than before, but gradually got used to the new pace.

A couple of times recently I've wondered why I can see the backing structure of the knitting. It was whilst knitting this Tank Top of Doom that I realised my stitches weren't really sitting straight. They were slightly raised on the right:

As you can see, it's not unpleasant, it just looks like a more textured version of knitting.

I decided to investigate and - lo! I am twisting my stitches. Marvellous. The problem apparently is in my purl stitch, which I was doing the easy way rather than the proper way. Wise Hilda has a good explanation here. With a bit of research, I realise that the answer I need is Combination knitting. It's kind of the best of both worlds. If you wish to find out more, the doyenne of Combination (or Combined) knitting is Annie Modesitt. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it appears that my original knitting style was right all along! Who knew?!

You can see the different styles when comparing the plain red background to the stripey bottom of TTTOD. You can see it best on the back of the garment. The bottom is smooth, drapey and more professional looking. It's also faster and more satisfying to knit.

So there you have it! As well as *everything* going wrong with TTTOD, I learned a new technique and was able to reflect on my own skills. Thankfully it was a project for my son, I would not have sent out a project like this to anyone else. All that remained was to do some embroidery and sew on a few buttons. Oh and weave in the ends - a new technique learned with a crochet hook thanks to You Tube. So here it is:

I've not blocked it yet because I wanted to show you the difference in stitches. It will shapen up a bit more then.

It's still WAY too big for Charlie, but he'll grow into it:

 

Having had a quick Google, it looks like it's aged 9 -10. Hey ho, at least I have a finished product! Until recently, I would just have frogged the blooming thing, but it's nice to know that you can make a knitting pattern behave and show it who's boss.

Tank Top of Doom = 0. Determined Mother = 1. Yay!

Part One: The Journey and Taa-Daa: Carrot Bag

A couple of weeks ago, on the 15th March (which incidentally was my birthday), I had a work meeting in Essex. Given that I live near Hull this was a pretty long way to travel for a one hour meeting, especially for someone whose independence can be hindered by ME. That said, I was determined to make the effort, and I was determined to do it without crutches. All nine trains of it and 14 hours of it.

As the day approached I was filled with nervous excitement - the meeting was very exciting - but the journey also phased me. I realised, stood at Hull Paragon station with newly crocheted bag in one hand and a coffee in the other, that I hadn't actually left the house without a chaperone in two years. TWO YEARS. I felt wonderfully, wonderfully free. And a bit anxious. And I wondered exactly what had happened to me that I had gone from independent professional, to nervous recluse. The reality smacked me hard between the eyes: I have effectively lost two years of my life. How on earth can I make that up?

A few things really appealed about taking the trip. Firstly was the challenge of it. Secondly, all that peace and quiet and time to myself - bliss. And thirdly? Time to read, and to knit. It's not like I don't have a lot of time for reading and knitting but, to be fair, I thought it was a good sign to still be excited about my work thing enough to want to do it as a hobby thing too.

The night before the trip, having made myself a bag and a necklace (because I wanted to stand out, in a good way), I scrabbled through my stash trying to think of a new project to knit. I wanted something personal - for me. For so long everything I knit has been determined by my customers. I really enjoy this, but also once in a while it's nice to have complete creative control. I checked out my Ravelry list and eventually found a fabulous tank top that I could make for Charlie. It should look like this (and please excuse the rubbish picture):

What drew me to this tank top was the colour, and the quirky retro feel of the robot. I knew it was something Charlie would love. I'm also creatively very interested in clothes that allow children to role play but are proper clothes rather than dress up, and this fits the bill nicely. I could just imagine Charlie running around pretending that he is Robbie The Robot, as depicted on his jumper.

What I am going to tell you now will be of no surprise: I did not knit a stitch on that train journey. I only just managed a couple of chapters too. It all went swimmingly well - the meeting and the journey, and I spent most of my time gazing out of the window at the wonderful English countryside - lamb spotting, I'll admit it, or people watching. Both were very entertaining too.I listened to paper merchants and people talking hurridly in foreign languages on their phones. I watched a young man leave his iPhone and wallet open and unattended on his seat, so he could chat up the pretty girl a few seats down (Christ, I sound like my mother). I saw two rows of cheery toddlers in triple buggies watching the trains and hoping that someone would wave at them. It was brilliant. SO worth it. I absolutely recommend a trip somewhere new on the train, even if it's just to blow the cobwebs away.

But the knitting reclined languorously at the bottom of that newly crocheted bag, gathering bits.

I will come back to that robot tank top as, unfortunately, it's been somewhat challenging. However, I have also learned a lot about technique and tried out lots of new things, but they're unrelated to The Trip, really.I shall tell you about them tomorrow. However, in the spirit of The Trip, what is more relevant is this:

Taa - Daa! The Carrot Bag

The carrot bag was conceived in front of CSI. I LOVE crocheting these bags - (UK) DC round and round for the base until it seems large enough, then TC up and up until the bag is deep enough. I ran out of cream yarn before the end of the project, so used increasingly lighter cream tones until it faded to white. This worked amazingly well. I fancied a new edging as I often use shell edging on my bags and, after a quick mooch about, found this curlicue edging. I decided on green simply because I wanted it to co-ordinate with the bottom of the bag. It was only after I started that I realised it reminded me of pea shoots. Which is where the idea for the carrots came from....

The fabric inside is, actually, a bag in itself. As such this bag took quite a long time to make. For Christmas I was lucky enough to receive a copy of Lisa Lam's book The Bag Making Bible:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bag-Making-Bible-Complete-Customizing/dp/071533624X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301318481&sr=8-1

I LOVE this book, it is one of the best self-help books I own. I constantly pick it up when I am making bags because the techniques are second to none. The projects are great too, but I don't always want to make someone else's ideas up. I love the fact the techniques are including separately from the projects, but the projects link to the technique being taught. Does that make sense? It makes it easier to use the book as a tool to help you make your own things.

Anyway, inspired by Lisa Lam, I made a lined bag with inner zip pockets for my phone and purse. It was perfectly big enough for the things I wanted to carry (magazines and book) but not so deep I lose my knitting. It's an absolute bloody revelation to be able to make a bag that suits your needs perfectly. If you're any good at sewing, then I urge you to try it. You will feel like the cleverest thing in the world.

The carrot bag was satisfying to make and certainly eye catching. It's very practical too and I can see me using it a lot. Many people commented on it, even strangers. Some clearly did not like it much, but boo ya sucks to them. The only thing I'd change if I repeated the project would be to use a better quality yarn for the carrots. I only had mega cheap acrylic in my stash in orange, and I think it shows. I am tempted to buy some orange cotton - possibly Debbie Bliss's Eco Baby in DK - and see whether I can do a better job of it.

Anyway - love to you all, and back with the knitting techniques post very soon

Claire x

Taa-Daa: Memory Quilt

At last! I'm sorry it's taken me such a long time to reveal my surprise project - it's proved a rather tricky thing to photograph. Either there has been too much sun casting big shadows all over the quilt's ripples, or not enough. I've been ill and had paid work and, even though I managed to complete the thing well enough for Dom's birthday deadline, it was somewhat held together with bondaweb. It took me a good 10 ten days afterwards to finish off all the hand stitching. Note to self: In future estimate the amount of time something will take, then double it.

However, voila, here it is. I give you - <trumpets> THE MEMORY QUILT! </trumpets>

Let me start by staying that my husband is resolutely difficult to buy for. He likes his bees, making home brew and hot women, given half a chance. However, since the last one has been out of the question since marrying me (sorry, Dom!) that leaves the other two, both of which have been well catered for at every other birthday, Christmas etc. My parents tend to give Dom some money as a gift, or buy him gardening tools / vouchers. He is very happy with this arrangement. His family normally give him money, which he likes too - and normally spends on beekeeping equipment.

I tried - I really did - to save enough money to take him to Rome for his 40th. However, no matter where I put the money, Dom found it and moved it back to be used for more important things. I even told him what I was doing, in sheer desperation, and all he could say was "but I don't want anything for my birthday." Yeah, right. This was his 40th, and I was not stupid enough to fall for that one, even if it would have served him right.

So I took a long, cold look at myself. My husband, the man I love, was turning 40 and I wanted to mark the occasion. What could I do? I don't have much spare money, that's for sure. Besides which, he'd decided that he wanted a lathe and everyone in the family was chipping in. That was all very practical, but what could I do? To coin a very cheesy management phrase, how could I add value?

 

I could bake a cake, but I had done that every year since we'd met. It wasn't special enough. We couldn't really afford to go away for the weekend, especially as we'd commited to going away with friends for a night a couple of weeks afterwards - this had been arranged since Christmas. Eventually I took a long look at my studio full of fabric and yarn, and decided it needed to be something hand made.

The problem with my husband though, gorgeous as he is, is that he's not in the least bit sentimental. And he's already had a Little Picasso cushion, and various other things I sell on Folksy: such is the lot of a spouse whose partner needs to refine her ideas. He actively cringes at most soppy things. What could I make that was sentimental, but not overly so, resource cheap, but could be time heavy?

At the same time, we were having a completely different conversation. Charlie had finally grown out of his cot bed, and he went into a big, single bed. It was a very exciting time for him, but a little sad for me. It was with great sadness that I packed away his cot, not likely to be used by us again, and all his cot bedding.

Then - TA DAAA! - there it was, in the middle of the night! I would use Charlie's recently discarded baby quilt to make a new quilt for Dominic. Dom would love that - he really does love his boys. It's sentimental enough without being sickly so - perfect. So, I gathered together Charlie's old duvet and bedding, and some old clothes of his and started to put together some ideas.

I'll be honest, there were times when I wondered whether this was an appropriate gift idea for a 40 year old man. But as the germ of the idea grew in my mind, I also started to realise that I wanted it to mark his life so far, and, to a certain extent, his dreams. It would be MORE than a quilt. An act of love, maybe? A rite of passage? That sounds a bit wanky, sorry. But you know what I mean.

So what I did was this. I got enough fabric together to work out a colour scheme (orange, red and blue), and then bought a couple of fabulous packs of co-ordinated fabric from the brilliant Seam Star. This isn't how I'd usually make a quilt - I'd enjoy spending time finding co-ordinating fabrics individually. But this takes time, which was something I didn't have. I would, however, buy the co-ordinated bundles again, it took a lot of hard work out of the process. And it included some fabrics I wouldn't have considered, but ended up looking great.

The next thing I did was to find some lovely family photos. It was important to me to have some photos of Dom throughout his life - something I knew he wouldn't be keen on! I tried to pick the nicest photos (I hope I did a good job.) There are some of his babyhood:

Some memories of his childhood:

(Dom could finish his Rubix cube - I could only do it by peeling the stickers off and putting them back in the right order! He often ribs me about this)

 

(we were both computer montitors at different schools, 200 miles apart. We both rave about the BBC Model B)

 

Some pictures of his adolescence (I think he's dead handsome on this one, aged 13ish, the same age as Jonny now):

His very first car - which he admits was a dog, but he loved.

Some pictures of the love of his life (I hope! lol)

and of his wife and children (I'm assuming they're one and the same!):

Some facts about the year he was born, 1971:

A dream of his:

He's a pianist (you have to be careful how you say that aloud!) He really wants a baby grand, but it's utterly and completely out of our league at the moment. This one was apparently a house warming gift for someone from Elton John. Dom loves playing EJ's music; Something About The Way You Look Tonight was our first dance song at our wedding. One day I'll be rich enough to buy him one. Until then, here is the promise.

And finally, a tribute to the lovely man that I love so much, who is a wonderful husband and father. And beekeeper:

On the back of the quilt, to recognise the birthday-ness of the tribute, I asked his family to write some messages on pieces of fabric in fabric pen.

(if you look carefully you'll notice an axe and a gravestone in a rather worrying tribute from Charlie depicting him "doing jobs" with his Daddy)

(I nearly cried at this one. Jonny never says the words "love you" anymore, being, of course, too cool for school now)

 

(this brought tears to everyone's eyes. Dom's Grandma died ten years ago, about 12 weeks before we got together)

(this seemed appropriate at the time. Now each time I look at it, it makes me sing Wild Thing in my head. Oopa)

So there you have it. A tribute, in textiles, to a lovely man. A way to show the warmth of our love both literally and metaphorically. We love you, Dominic. Happy Birthday, darling.

<passes sick bucket to blog readers. Normal service will resume soon>

 

PS I never did get to bake that cake.